Dungeon challenge: Gold - what specc?

As the thread states, Im wondering about what specc I should go, and what is best for doing gold mode. I have around 500 ilvl in balance, and around 490 in bear tank. Have both feral gear and resto gear thats working good, and I have knowledge of all speccs.

So as I mentioned, what specc is best, and why? Thanks for every helpful answer.

From my understanding classes you want are DKs for tanking due to their CDs. Here a guardian druid wouldn't do great because our CDs are on long CDs and/or RNG based. That being said, guardian druids could be fine if you play with other skilled players.

DPS wise you want classes that can cleave well and do good single target burst. Feral and balance are not very good at cleaving for long periods of time without CDs. They are also not great at single target burst.

Healer wise, resto is pretty good. Coupled with HotW you can put out good numbers on bosses and help with trash. While not the strongest healer for these runs we are pretty good.

So bottom line, resto is probably your safest bet. That being said, with the right group makeup of skilled players you could get golds with any spec but almost all other classes can do the role better. From what I've read, the ideal comp is: DK tank (best CDs), rogue (AoE stealth), lock (healthstones and great AoE/single target damage), ele shammy/mage/hunter (lust, good single target and aoe damage), any healer (or shammy if you are not getting lust elsewhere).

From my understanding classes you want are DKs for tanking due to their CDs. Here a guardian druid wouldn't do great because our CDs are on long CDs and/or RNG based. That being said, guardian druids could be fine if you play with other skilled players.

DPS wise you want classes that can cleave well and do good single target burst. Feral and balance are not very good at cleaving for long periods of time without CDs. They are also not great at single target burst.

Healer wise, resto is pretty good. Coupled with HotW you can put out good numbers on bosses and help with trash. While not the strongest healer for these runs we are pretty good.

So bottom line, resto is probably your safest bet. That being said, with the right group makeup of skilled players you could get golds with any spec but almost all other classes can do the role better. From what I've read, the ideal comp is: DK tank (best CDs), rogue (AoE stealth), lock (healthstones and great AoE/single target damage), ele shammy/mage/hunter (lust, good single target and aoe damage), any healer (or shammy if you are not getting lust elsewhere).

Thanks for a good and helpful answer! I'll go restoration then! Thanks!

From my understanding classes you want are DKs for tanking due to their CDs. Here a guardian druid wouldn't do great because our CDs are on long CDs and/or RNG based. That being said, guardian druids could be fine if you play with other skilled players.

DPS wise you want classes that can cleave well and do good single target burst. Feral and balance are not very good at cleaving for long periods of time without CDs. They are also not great at single target burst.

Healer wise, resto is pretty good. Coupled with HotW you can put out good numbers on bosses and help with trash. While not the strongest healer for these runs we are pretty good.

So bottom line, resto is probably your safest bet. That being said, with the right group makeup of skilled players you could get golds with any spec but almost all other classes can do the role better. From what I've read, the ideal comp is: DK tank (best CDs), rogue (AoE stealth), lock (healthstones and great AoE/single target damage), ele shammy/mage/hunter (lust, good single target and aoe damage), any healer (or shammy if you are not getting lust elsewhere).

Now about what type of damage dealer you want in Challenge, You hardly ever cleave in a challenge because most of the time there's so many target that everyone just do their all out AoE rotation. Class that tend to shine are those who can do Great AoE and/or great single target burst. Balance druid are actually very good on cleave because of their multidoting but sadly that isn't really useful in a challenge mode, they can still hold their own because they have a great burst. As for feral druid, they can do great AoE and great burst but they rely a lot on their CDs which won't be available all the time obviously.

Now, about the ideal comp, it's hard to find a best comp but it's safe to say that as a general rule, the best comps to complete gold will have 0 melee, *any* tank, a disc priest, a lust and as many buff as you can cover. I personally feel it's much easier to attain gold time with a brewmaster tank provided your healer can keep him up because of the amount of damage a brewmaster does compared to any other tank.

Bottom line, try to find players who are interested to complete challenge modes with you and work from there to see which of your spec would fit better in the group you have.

That being said, with the right group makeup of skilled players you could get golds with any spec but almost all other classes can do the role better.

You say my post is uninformed then go on to say the exact same thing I did?

Originally Posted by Nerthfu

Now about what type of damage dealer you want in Challenge, You hardly ever cleave in a challenge because most of the time there's so many target that everyone just do their all out AoE rotation. Class that tend to shine are those who can do Great AoE and/or great single target burst. Balance druid are actually very good on cleave because of their multidoting but sadly that isn't really useful in a challenge mode, they can still hold their own because they have a great burst. As for feral druid, they can do great AoE and great burst but they rely a lot on their CDs which won't be available all the time obviously.

By cleave I do not mean the warrior cleave, I mean AoE cleave. Confusing on my part, but you agree with me. You state, as I did that balance and feral rely on their CDs to pull competitive numbers. The other classes are not hindered by this. Multidotting in trash packs of 5+ mobs which most are in challenge mode does not work. Hurricane is the way to do that but you would OOM yourself quickly trying.

Originally Posted by Nerthfu

Now, about the ideal comp, it's hard to find a best comp but it's safe to say that as a general rule, the best comps to complete gold will have 0 melee, *any* tank, a disc priest, a lust and as many buff as you can cover. I personally feel it's much easier to attain gold time with a brewmaster tank provided your healer can keep him up because of the amount of damage a brewmaster does compared to any other tank.

Different strokes for different folks. While a monk does do a ton of damage they are squishy. I'd rather have a tank that can take a beating to take more effort off the healer so your healer can perhaps go DPS for certain pulls. And with a druid and HotW+Hurricane you can pull some big numbers. On wind lord I pull 90k DPS in the first 30 seconds using it.

Again I'll say, any team can get a gold, it's just easier for some than for others and it comes down to what groups you can form with the people you know. What I posted was the group makeup I see most people posting as the "best" and "easiest" but your mileage may vary.

Well if you do want to talk about AoE and not cleave you should refer to AoE, a boomkin can cleave just fine, better than most class even, and a feral druid not so much. That doesn't matter anyway because you're almost never in a cleaving situation.

as for monk tank, they can either have alot more EHP than any other tank, making them the hardest tank to get globaled in challenge or take less dmg than any other tank, depanding on how you chose to build them. each have it's perks and down, but people need to get off the blood DK bandwagon, they're highly overrated for CMs. (except in scarlet monastery).

I also know a druid can pull some decent number, but a disc can do almost as much as a druid can, except 100% of the time.

When I said your post was uninformed, I was referring to what you said about group composition and your dps analysis. Now even if you used the wrong term and what you meant by cleave was AoE you still said the druid don't do high single target burst which is just wrong. Their burst might rely on cooldowns, but so does everyone else burst (which is why they're burst).

I've see a tons of discussion about ideal best comp for CMs, and even if I generally do not agree, you're actually the first one I've ever seen that include a rogue in it.

Yeah, as far as I'm aware, a rogue is only useful for skipping the first pack in Siege with mass stealth and I'm not even sure if bringing a rogue is worth the gain of ~20-30 seconds it brings you. No fight specifically favors melee while a bunch of mechanics and bosses favor range. Plus, rogues suck at aoe.

Resto druids are slightly better than average - compared to say, a holy priest, they are able to deal more dps, and have more healing cooldowns, but definitely overshadowed by a disc.

Feral druids are in the upper tier of dps in challenge modes, but I personally believe hunters, ele shaman, and mages are all better and generally the best triumvirate to bring - if you happen to have that choice available.

Guardians are just about average. Nothing particularly stands out - middle of the road in damage/survivability as far as I can tell.

Balance is subpar by a decent bit. Every other druid spec hurricanes harder, and single target is mostly bad.

source(s): was the top ranked CM druid for a while, but I've since branched out and gotten challenge conq gold on other toons.

As far as healing goes, I'd say resto can actually work really well for CM golds, provided the player has a decent amount of skill. Since you can't throw out shields like a Disc can, you have to compensate by spamming direct heals to keep people alive. It can get frantic, but if you can pull it off, the mobility, CC and HotW DPS we bring is great.

I'd say that you can do all the challenge modes with basically any line-up. I've done a handful of golds with Protadin, Resto Druid, Feral Druid (me), Fury Warrior and a Rogue. A full melee group and no hero. Still works out. Duplicate classes can be troublesome in some of the harder ones, but after getting gold in all challenge modes with various line-ups I think it's more about figuring out clever ways to use everyones abilities and getting good teamwork going is most important. A healer that can do decent damage when healing isn't quite as intense (most boss fights) helps.

Druids are great though with stuns, knockbacks, interrupts, stampeding roar, stealth and heart of the wild. So I wouldn't sweat the spec picking too much, it's more about getting a good group going and figuring out how to use your strengths in the right way!

moonkin seems okay but you'll want a mastery reforge as the main theme is "AOE ALL THE THINGS". our aoe is sort of weak and is only semi made up for with our incredible burst ever 3 minutes. solar beam is handy on some things, but you'd be much better off with a stun like capacitor totem, leg sweep, remorseless winter, and so on.

bear is probably just as doable as anything else, however a lot of key pulls involve kiting which bears are sort of weak for (certainly the addition of typhoon and vortex make it a little easier, but a DK or warrior will still be the better choice.)

i can't really speak to feral but i know they have good AE and defensive cooldowns - however there are several instances where melee is not preferable and the last time i really played feral they had some ramp up time outside of cooldowns. ramp up is anti-challenge mode. its all about get in, get out burst dps.

all things considered, i would play resto. you bring most of the same utility in this spec as anything plus a little more. i did 9/9 gold as resto and about 4/9 as moonkin (ms moonkin) - hotw is OP as shit, you can heal most of the dungeon on zero mana, high mobility with hots, big healing cooldowns, ironbark, cc, etc etc. they just bring a lot to the table. i was able to use dps trinkets for most instances and do really crazy damage with heart of the wild and blood lust (around 5 mil).

I don't see why people say "melee is not favored for CM's" other than perhaps they're afraid of standing in shit on the floor if not paying 100% attention to surroundings while still delivering. The 463 ilvl seems very very balanced (except maybe a tiny bit skewed due to gemming) so any "inferior dps" should probably be considered as opportunity to learn class and instance better?

As others have said, any setup will work as long as you all work together.

There are a few bosses where being a melee is just a pain in the ass, but I'd still claim that they're more than fine for golds. If anything, due to their burst aoe and mobility even prefered (imho).

-Feral is an overall very solid spec, brings 2 buffs and one debuff, and has really good dps.

-Havent had any experience with boomkins, but from what I can tell they're a bit subpar. Awesome cds, but pretty meh outside. However, depending on what kind of composition youre running with I would still take one. Ask yourself what your goal is, if it's just getting golds taking a boomkin isnt a bad idea. It makes some trashpulls trivial (think scarlet pulls, solarbeam will neuter half the pack and prevent any healing). You dont need gamebreaking dps to get golds and the utility druids bring is pretty insane (hotw, typhoon, solarbeam)

-playing resto is never a bad choice. Spamheal, enjoy, get golds. Still overshadowed by discs and their retarded atonement, but as I said, dps isnt a real concern in CMs, it's making sure the run goes fluently.

-guardian, again, dont have much experience with Guardians in CMs, but I do play one in raids. Offensively they're probably one of the strongest tanks in terms of CDs (berserk and beargod incarnation). Since the buff to thrash bear aoe is pretty ridculous as well, but they lack real magical cds (no ams, diffuse magic or divine protection) and no real mass control to alleviate pressure (legsweep, remorseless, shockwave, glyphed blinding light). However our AM requires alot less buildup than BrM, assuming you dont keep pulling at zero rage.

In the end it's really just about what group of people you find to do these with. If it's your first time getting golds I would suggest you take a healing or dps role though, alot less stressful imho.

I don't see why people say "melee is not favored for CM's" other than perhaps they're afraid of standing in shit on the floor if not paying 100% attention to surroundings while still delivering. The 463 ilvl seems very very balanced (except maybe a tiny bit skewed due to gemming) so any "inferior dps" should probably be considered as opportunity to learn class and instance better?

As others have said, any setup will work as long as you all work together.

Scarlet Monastery -
*ghosts before first boss are rooted and 1-shot anyone who approaches. Melee cannot aoe after the initial 10 seconds.
*second boss's flaming fire kick is death to melee after the second or third one - unless healers are willing to massively heal through even really good cds.
*both second and third boss continously move around, and the first & second boss drop anti-melee void zones on the ground.
*trash flame strikes and hurts melee a lot worse than range.

Scarlet halls -
*melee clump takes more damage from piercing throw than range.
*cannot dps second boss a quarter of the time at all while range are free to pew while he's in blades of light.
*flamestriking trash again

Scholomance -
*moving out of frost rings on the first boss often causes you to move into parry zone.
*second boss drops those purple knockback pools that cause at least twice as much downtime for melee as range.
*much harder to find a safespot to aoe third boss' trash.
*have to run to set spots to click bone piles and run back vs range dps just turreting and camping by one.
*have to run away when fourth boss aoe deathgrips and summons those purple flames while range can freely dps
*have to avoid gandling explosions whereas range can just pew pew forever with a frost trap.

In terms of melee DPS, I'd have to agree with kaiadam about the innate disadvantages in almost every challenge mode going against them. Between boss mechanics and large trash pulls with nasty aoe damage abilities, it's easy to be one-shot as a melee DPS if you don't pay attention (or even if you do, you roll the dice on some packs). If you have ever tanked CM's, you get a general idea of how nasty it can be when you're in melee range of certain mobs.

From a tanking perspective, I've actually tanked all gold CM's as a Guardian druid and as a Blood DK. From the druid perspective, I'd say Guardians are much more dependent on the comp you bring determining your tanking speed/success compared to a DK. I believe it really comes down to the tools and CC available to each class that can make-or-break a run, and Guardians really lack in that department. The resulting problem is the issue of being CC'd ourselves or being unable to avoid a large chunk of damage (I've said some very regrettable words during Scarlet Monastary and Mogu'shan Palace). Since we can't bring that sort of CC to the party to consistently avoid that, we're much more dependent on the classes/specs that we bring with us. Honestly, I think using a Blood DK is almost cheating in CM's with the toolbox and ease involved, especially compared to being Guardian.

However, getting back to the main topic and which spec to use, it's really a personal preference and the group comp you bring. My group with me as a Guardian druid was resto druid, fire mage, elemental shaman, and last spot varied by week (usually ret paladin), so you can see why we likely had a rougher time getting golds.

Scarlet Monastery -
*ghosts before first boss are rooted and 1-shot anyone who approaches. Melee cannot aoe after the initial 10 seconds.
*second boss's flaming fire kick is death to melee after the second or third one - unless healers are willing to massively heal through even really good cds.
*both second and third boss continously move around, and the first & second boss drop anti-melee void zones on the ground.
*trash flame strikes and hurts melee a lot worse than range.

Scarlet halls -
*melee clump takes more damage from piercing throw than range.
*cannot dps second boss a quarter of the time at all while range are free to pew while he's in blades of light.
*flamestriking trash again

Scholomance -
*moving out of frost rings on the first boss often causes you to move into parry zone.
*second boss drops those purple knockback pools that cause at least twice as much downtime for melee as range.
*much harder to find a safespot to aoe third boss' trash.
*have to run to set spots to click bone piles and run back vs range dps just turreting and camping by one.
*have to run away when fourth boss aoe deathgrips and summons those purple flames while range can freely dps
*have to avoid gandling explosions whereas range can just pew pew forever with a frost trap.

I could go on but you get the idea.

Will take the first one since it covers pretty much everything else in your post.

- These guys don't have much health and melee can focus boss instead. Win/win. If feral, you can HOTW hurricane which hits like a truck.
- The boss usually targets where a ranged person is standing so they have to move. Less pewpew for them as well. Burst depending on class/spec etc. Thought this was pretty balanced? Have not seen ranged consistently do more dmg on this boss vs melee.
- Melee are supposed to move and still being able to execute full rotation (?)
- Can largely (almost entirely?) be mitigated by stun rotations and good tanking positioning

I did all golds as Resto. The most important thing for a healer is knowing when the HARD pull is inc, so you have your cd's ready for that. Gift of the Wild spec can be viable on some boss encounters since the bosses usually hit like girl, while the trash are going semi trailer mode. The healing classes that can assist on dps are the "best" in the challenges, but resto druid is very viable with stampede, symb, cr etc. It depends on the group you are in tbh.

I just finished clearing all CM dungeons with silver and about to start trying for gold next week. Here's my 2 cents:

Guardian: Unsure - from what I heard DK and paladin tanks rule in CM.
Feral: DO NOT DO IT!! Challenge Mode dungeons are very melee unfriendly. As a healer, I have to say it's so much easier to heal when there's no melee DPS
Balance: Great - brings 5% spell haste and Solar Beam which are really nice
Restoration: Pretty solid choice for CM. Heart of the Wild and Symbiosis are quite handy

Since resto druids have only one mitigation spell we can use on tanks, it's probably best if your tank's talent choice and gemming are more mitigation focused than DPS focused. Pulls are quite large if you are trying to beat the timer for gold, so Ironbark on 2 minutes CD and only mitigating 20% can make things difficult at times